Earth sciences professor places second with carbon capture technology
February 25, 2010 9:00 AM
Dave Risk, a StFX professor of earth sciences, recently placed second in the I-3 Technology Start-Up Competition, a contest to encourage entrepreneurship in the technology sector in Nova Scotia.
Risk proposed a conceptual business to conduct scientific monitoring at carbon capture and storage sites using products from his research. He explains that this type of company is in high demand, but has not yet materialized in the business world.
“We’ve been developing solutions for businesses to use, but they don’t really know if they need yet… [So] we’ve gone ahead and started to get it out there ourselves. This is a company that would work in the everyday world. In the lab, I can’t do this sort of data collection.”
“If someone has a project and they want me to do the monitoring, my flat answer is no because my lab doesn’t work at carbon sites,” he explains.
“We do research. It’s a company’s role to take on that sort of contract. We will be forming a company with the proceeds…It allows us to keep close by and contributing to the real world in an important way,” he continues.
Risk began his research into this project two years ago. He explains that the science behind carbon capture is new itself.
“Our company monitors carbon capture and storage sites. It’s very new to try to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Carbon capture takes emissions that would otherwise go out in smoke stacks. Instead of allowing that to go out into air, you catch it and drive it underground into some oil field or gas reservoir, like Sable Island,” he says, referring to the island off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Because his proposed company is a concept, Risk will use the $40,000 in competition proceeds to fund a spin-off company. Companies inspired by university research are common in larger universities in Canada and the United States, but do not appear often in Atlantic Canadian schools.
“I want to see these ideas in the real world. If there’s an appetite but no vehicle, I’ll do it myself. It’s a matter of following through [with my research],” he explains of his motivation behind starting his own company.
He hopes to eventually set up a network of monitoring sites in the north where experts anticipate large emissions of carbon dioxide from thawing permafrost. Three sites are already underway in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. He reveals that he is trying to get Discovery Channel interested in the project.
Risk argues that carbon capture and storage will become more familiar to everyday Canadians as its importance to environmental sustainability grows.
“Carbon capture and storage is a short term fix while we [reconfigure] our economy to alternative fuels. We’re jamming a lot of carbon dioxide underground and there is worry about it coming out. There have been natural episodes in earth history that have killed thousands [as a result],” he notes, referring to an incident in Cameroon.
Lake Nyos is a large body of water located in an inactive volcanic area. Magma stored underneath the lake releases carbon dioxide into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. In 1986, the lake emitted a large cloud of carbon dioxide gas into the air that suffocated thousands of local people and livestock.
“That is exactly what we don’t want to happen, and I was always pretty worried for the monitoring people proposed for those sites [where carbon dioxide is concentrated],” he explains.
Originally from Toronto, Risk obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, a master’s degree from StFX, and his doctorate from Dalhousie University. He was initially attracted to Atlantic Canada by the opportunities offered for graduate research at a small university.
“In a smaller environment, I have to wear many hats, and that’s what I want to do. I didn’t want to be a cog in a huge machine executing others ideas,” he says.
His research advisors afforded him many opportunities as a graduate student to present at academic conferences, set up laboratories, and practice as a teaching assistant.
He looks for students with their own unique research interests to join his research team.
“I like students that bring something new to the group, like some new skill or interest. Most of the students are really involved with commercialization [of research], for example, and they want to go to spin-off companies after they graduate.”
He adds that patents are shared with graduate students who contribute to his research.
